Martin Luther King Jr. - Biography Martin Luther King Jr. The Nobel Peace Prize 1964 Martin Luther King Jr. Share this: Martin Luther King Jr. - Biography Martin Luther King, Jr., (January 15, 1929-April 4, 1968) was born Michael Luther King, Jr., but later had his name changed to Martin. His grandfather began the family's long tenure as pastors of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, serving from 1914 to 1931; his father has served from then until the present, and from 1960 until his death Martin Luther acted as co-pastor. Martin Luther attended segregated public schools in Georgia, graduating from high school at the age of fifteen; he received the B. A. degree in 1948 from Morehouse College, a distinguished Negro institution of Atlanta from which both his father and grandfather had graduated. After three years of theological study at Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania where he was elected president of a predominantly white senior class, he was awarded the B.D. in 1951.

With a fellowship won at Crozer, he enrolled in graduate studies at Boston University, completing his residence for the doctorate in 1953 and receiving the degree in 1955. In Boston he met and married Coretta Scott, a young woman of uncommon intellectual and artistic attainments. Two sons and two daughters were born into the family. See Also Post a message! In 1954, Martin Luther King became pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. Always a strong worker for civil rights for members of his race, King was, by this time, a member of the executive committee of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the leading organization of its kind in the nation. He was ready, then, early in December, 1955, to accept the leadership of the first great Negro nonviolent demonstration of contemporary times in the United States, the bus boycott described by Gunnar Jahn in his presentation speech in honor of the laureate. The boycott lasted 382 days.

On December 21, 1956, after the Supreme Court of the United States had declared unconstitutional the laws requiring segregation on buses, Negroes and whites rode the buses as equals. During these days of boycott, King was arrested, his home was bombed, he was subjected to personal abuse, but at the same time he emerged as a Negro leader of the first rank. In 1957 he was elected president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization formed to provide new leadership for the now burgeoning civil rights movement. The ideals for this organization he took from Christianity; its operational techniques from Gandhi. In the eleven-year period between 1957 and 1968, King traveled over six million miles and spoke over twenty-five hundred times, appearing wherever there was injustice, protest, and action; and meanwhile he wrote five books as well as numerous articles. In these years, he led a massive protest in Birmingham, Alabama, that caught the attention of the entire world, providing what he called a coalition of conscience.

and inspiring his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail", a manifesto of the Negro revolution; he planned the drives in Alabama for the registration of Negroes as voters; he directed the peaceful march on Washington, D.C., of 250,000 people to whom he delivered his address, "l Have a Dream", he conferred with President John F. Kennedy and campaigned for President Lyndon B. Johnson; he was arrested upwards of twenty times and assaulted at least four times; he was awarded five honorary degrees; was named Man of the Year by Time magazine in 1963; and became not only the symbolic leader of American blacks but also a world figure. At the age of thirty-five, Martin Luther King, Jr., was the youngest man to have received the Nobel Peace Prize. When notified of his selection, he announced that he would turn over the prize money of $54,123 to the furtherance of the civil rights movement. On the evening of April 4, 1968, while standing on the balcony of his motel room in Memphis, Tennessee, where he was to lead a protest march in sympathy with striking garbage workers of that city, he was assassinated.

Selected Bibliography Adams, Russell, Great Negroes Past and Present, pp. 106-107. Chicago, Afro-Am Publishing Co., 1963. Bennett, Lerone, Jr., What Manner of Man: A Biography of Martin Luther King, Jr. Chicago, Johnson, 1964. I Have a Dream: The Story of Martin Luther King in Text and Pictures. New York, Time Life Books, 1968. King, Martin Luther, Jr., The Measure of a Man. Philadelphia. The Christian Education Press, 1959. Two devotional addresses. King, Martin Luther, Jr., Strength to Love. New York, Harper & Row, 1963. Sixteen sermons and one essay entitled "Pilgrimage to Nonviolence." King, Martin Luther, Jr., Stride toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story. New York, Harper, 1958. King, Martin Luther, Jr., The Trumpet of Conscience. New York, Harper & Row, 1968. King, Martin Luther, Jr., Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?

New York, Harper & Row, 1967. King, Martin Luther, Jr., Why We Can't Wait. New York, Harper & Row, 1963. "Man of the Year", Time, 83 (January 3, 1964) 13-16; 25-27. "Martin Luther King, Jr.", in Current Biography Yearbook 1965, ed. by Charles Moritz, pp. 220-223. New York, H.W. Wilson. Reddick, Lawrence D., Crusader without Violence: A Biography of Martin Luther King, Jr. New York, Harper, 1959. From Nobel Lectures , Peace 1951-1970, Editor Frederick W. Haberman, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1972 This autobiography/biography was written at the time of the award and first published in the book series Les Prix Nobel . It was later edited and republished in Nobel Lectures . To cite this document, always state the source as shown above. * Note from Nobelprize.org: This biography uses the word "Negro".

Even though this word today is considered inappropriate, the biography is published in its original version in view of keeping it as a historical document. King wins Nobel Peace Prize - Oct 14, 1964 - HISTORY.com King wins Nobel Peace Prize Share this: King wins Nobel Peace Prize Author King wins Nobel Peace Prize URL Publisher A+E Networks African American civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his nonviolent resistance to racial prejudice in America. At 35 years of age, the Georgia-born minister was the youngest person ever to receive the award. Martin Luther King, Jr., was born in Atlanta in 1929, the son of a Baptist minister. He received a doctorate degree in theology and in 1955 organized the first major protest of the civil rights movement: the successful Montgomery Bus Boycott. Influenced by Mohandas Gandhi, he advocated nonviolent civil disobedience to racial segregation. The peaceful protests he led throughout the American South were often met with violence, but King and his followers persisted, and their nonviolent movement gained momentum. A powerful orator, he appealed to Christian and American ideals and won growing support from the federal government and northern whites.

In 1963, he led his massive March on Washington, in which he delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” address. In 1964, the civil rights movement achieved two of its greatest successes: the ratification of the 24th Amendment, which abolished the poll tax, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibited racial discrimination in employment and education and outlawed racial segregation in public facilities. In October of that year, King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. He donated the prize money, valued at $54,600, to the civil rights movement. In the late 1960s, King openly criticized U.S. involvement in Vietnam and turned his efforts to winning economic rights for poor Americans. By that time, the civil rights movement had begun to fracture, with activists such as Stokely Carmichael rejecting King’s vision of nonviolent integration in favor of African American self-reliance and self-defense.

In 1968, King intended to revive his movement through an interracial “Poor People’s March” on Washington, but on April 4 he was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, by escaped white convict James Earl Ray, just a few weeks before the demonstration was scheduled to begin. Related Videos Martin Luther King Jr. accepts Nobel Prize: 1964 - Videos - CBS News Martin Luther King Jr. accepts Nobel Prize: 1964 Martin Luther King Jr. accepts Nobel Prize: 1964 January 16, 2012, 3:26 AM | Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on Oct. 14, 1964. King was the 12th American, first African-American, and at the age of 35, the youngest person to receive the award. Nobel Prize: ten most important winners - Telegraph Sweden Nobel Prize: ten most important winners As the 2009 Nobel Prize winners are announced, we look at ten of the most influential laureates in the history of the awards.

Professor Marie Curie working in her laboratory at the University of Paris in 1925 Photo: AFP/GETTY IMAGES By Nick Collins 4:24PM BST 08 Oct 2009 1. Marie Curie The leading light in a family that between them amassed a remarkable five Nobel Prizes in the fields of Chemistry and Physics. She became the first woman to win a Nobel Prize in 1903 when she was recognised, along with her husband Pierre and Antoine Henri Becquerel, with the Physics award for their research into radiation. She later became the first person to receive two Nobel Prizes when she was given the Chemistry Prize in 1911 for her discovery of radium and polonium, and her further research into radium. She is among a select group of people to have won prizes in two different fields. 2. Martin Luther King Jr. The American civil rights activist was the youngest person to be recognised by the Nobel foundation when he won the Peace Prize in 1964, at the age of 35, for his work to end racial discrimination through non-violent means.

Related Articles Nobel Prize for Chemistry: Cambridge laboratory celebrates fourteenth win 08 Oct 2009 Even after his death in 1968 King's legacy lived on, and his image is still used today as a symbol by human rights groups around the world. 3. Albert Einstein Arguably the world's most famous scientist, Einstein was given the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1921 for his services to physics, especially his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect. During his career he made significant contributions to the world of theoretical physics, among them his famous theories of relativity. 4. Francis Crick, James Watson and Maurice Wilkins These three scientists were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1962 for their discovery of the "double helix" structure of DNA nine years earlier. The award was deemed controversial because of the death of Rosalind Franklin, a collaborator with Wilkins, four years earlier. Nobel foundation rules, which state the prizes cannot be given posthumously, meant her work was not recognised. 5.

Jean-Paul Sartre The French existentialist philosopher, writer and literary critic was the first person to turn down a Nobel Prize in 1964 when he declined the Prize for Literature. Sartre is still recorded as the winner by the Nobel federation for his influential work which was "filled with the spirit of freedom and the quest for truth". 6. Sir Alexander Fleming Sir Alexander shared the 1945 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Ernst Chain and Sir Howard Florey for the discovery of penicillin and its curative effect on infectious diseases. The Scot made his discovery accidentally when he returned to his untidy laboratory from a holiday to discover a fungus had developed that destroyed the bacteria immediately surrounding it. 7. Hermann Muller The American won the same prize as Fleming a year later, in 1946, for his discovery of the mutating effects of X-ray radiation. His research and continued argument against nuclear war made him a figure of great political significance in later years as nuclear weapons became an increasingly controversial subject. 8.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn The Russian novelist and dissident, who spent time in a Soviet labour camp after writing letters that criticised the communist regime, received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1970. His most famous novels, The Gulag Archipelago and One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, for which he received the award, exposed the brutality of the Soviet Union's forced labour camps. 9. The International Committee of the Red Cross The highest number of Nobel Prize wins goes to the International Committee of the Red Cross with three separate Nobel Peace Prizes. In 1917 and 1944 the organisation was recognised for its work during the First and Second World Wars, and it was named as a winner again in 1963, along with the League of Red Cross Societies, to mark its 100th anniversary. 10. Sir Clive Granger The Welsh economist won the 2003 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his methods of analysing economic statistics, which revolutionised the way economists interpret financial data. His prize was shared with Robert Engle III, for his research in a similar area.

Martin Luther King Wins The Nobel Prize for Peace Martin Luther King Wins The Nobel Prize for Peace Dr. King Is Winner Of Nobel Award Special to The New York Times OTHER HEADLINES Johnson Pledges Moves to Lessen World Tensions: At Alfred E. Smith Dinner He Hails Improvement in U.S.-Soviet Relations: Tired, He Cuts Speech: Promises Aid to Asians -- Talks at Garden Tonight After Heavy Schedule Goldwater Says Morality Is Demanded by the Nation Eisenhower Finds Silence on Issues: General Calls the Campaign Most Personal He's Seen -- Doubts Vietnam Trip President's Aide Quits on Report of Morals Case: Jenkins Was Arrested Last Week in Capital Y.M.C.A.

-- Is Sent to Hospital Yanks Rout Cards on Home Runs, 8-3; Series Tied at 3-3: Maris, Mantle and Pepitone Connect in Late Innings -- Final Game Today Reds in France Assert Autonomy of World Parties: Assail Meddling in Others' Affairs -- Subservience to Moscow Is Ended: Peking's Views Scored: National Needs Held Basis of Policy -- Plan for New International Opposed Close Vote Seen in Britain Today: Surveys Indicate a Toss-up, but 2 Sides Blame Edge -- 27 Million Due at Polls 2 Detectives Slain in Brooklyn Home; Suspect a Suicide Vatican Council May Go Into 1965: A 4th Session Now Likely -- Pope Will Visit India The Home Run Is the Decisive Weapon as Yankees Beat the Cardinals President Greets Kennedy Warmly: 2 Chat Together and Call on Late President's Wife Oslo, Norway, Oct. 14--The Nobel Peace prize for 1964 was awarded today to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The 35-year-old civil rights leader is the youngest winner of the prize that Dr.

Alfred Nobel instituted since the first was awarded in 1901. The prize honors acts "for the furtherance of brotherhood among men and to the abolishment or reduction of standing armies and for the extension of these purposes." The Norwegian state radio changed its program schedule tonight to broadcast a 30-minute program in honor of Dr. King. In a broadcast from Atlanta, Ga., Dr. King said that he was deeply moved by the honor. Dr. King said that "every penny" of the prize money, which amounts to about $54,000, would be given to the civil rights movement. "I am glad people of other nations are concerned with our problems here," he said. He added that he regarded the prize as a sign that world public opinion was on the side of those struggling for freedom and dignity. He also said he saw no political implications in the award. "I am a minister of the gospel, not a political leader," he said. The United States Ambassador in Oslo, Miss Margaret Joy Tibbetts, said tonight: "As an American and representative of the American people, I want to express joy and gratitude that one of my fellow countrymen has been awarded this prize." She praised the role of Dr.

King "among his fellow countrymen." He is also the 12th American to receive the peace Prize. The first, in 1950, was Dr. Ralph J. Bunche, Under Secretary of the United Nations. In 1960 the former leader of the African National Congress in South Africa, Chief Albert Luthuli, received the award. Dr. King is the 12th American to be awarded the peace prize. Dr. Nobel, the Swedish scientist who established it, was the inventor of dynamite. The award is given by the Norwegian Parliament. The other Nobel prizes--for chemistry, physics, medicine and physiology, and literature--will be awarded in Sweden. The award to Dr. King will be made in Oslo Dec. 10. Tribute to Nonviolence Seen Atlanta, Oct. 14--Dr. King said today that the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to him was a tribute to millions of Americans who followed the precepts of nonviolence. He spoke from a room at St. Joseph's Infirmary here, where he was undergoing a checkup and getting some rest.

"I was deeply gratified to hear the news that I had been chosen for this most significant award," he said, "and I will certainly receive it with great humility and profound appreciation." His wife, Coretta, said: "For many years we have had to contend with the other side. For something like this to happen makes it all worthwhile." Dr. King, who said he would use the money to advance the civil rights movement, is the president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an Atlanta-based organization that has programs in voter registration, citizenship training, and leadership development. The organization has affiliates in several Southern cities. Most of them are operated through church groups. "I do not consider this merely an honor to me personally," Dr. King said, "but a tribute to the disciplined, wise restraint and majestic courage of gallant Negro and white persons of goodwill who have followed a nonviolent course in seeking to establish a reign of justice and a rule of love across this nation of ours." Dr.

King said that he felt gratification in knowing that "the nations of the world," in bestowing the prize on him, "recognize the civil rights movement in this country as so significant a moral force as to merit such recognition." After noting that he had not had a general physical checkup in two years, Dr. King said, "I just kind of got rundown." He said the checkup would take about two days, and that he would remain in the hospital for a day or two more "to get some rest." Newsela | Dr. King's Nobel Peace Prize united 1964 Atlanta Dr. King's Nobel Peace Prize united 1964 Atlanta By Atlanta Journal-Constitution, adapted by Newsela staff 10.15.14 Word Count 876 Then Vice President-elect Hubert H. Humphrey (left), alongside Coretta Scott King (center) and civil rights leader and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (right) at a rally at Harlem's 369th Regiment Armory on Dec. 17, 1964. Wikimedia Commons/United States Library of Congress ATLANTA — On the morning of Oct.

14, 1964 — 50 years ago this week — the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. was exhausted. He had just returned to Atlanta and looked so alarming that his wife, Coretta Scott King, took him to the hospital. The doctor there lectured King about eating fried foods, and told him that he was run-down, overweight and suffering from both a severe virus and high blood pressure. When Coretta called her husband's hospital room that Wednesday morning to tell him he had won the Nobel Peace Prize, King later said he thought he was dreaming. Ambassador Andrew Young, a civil rights leader and one of King’s closest friends, said he didn't even think King knew he had been nominated for the Nobel. "So it was a shock." Young said that when King's wife called, he said, "All right," and hung up the phone. Then he called her back and asked, "Did you just call me?" She said, "Yes, you won the Nobel Peace Prize." A Turning Point For All King, who was 35, became the second African-American and, at the time, the youngest person to win the Peace Prize.

At the time in the American South, it was against the law for black and white people to eat together in public, and black people had to sit in the back of buses. In 1955, he led the Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott after Rosa Parks, who was black, refused to give up her seat to a white person. The honor wasn’t just a turning point for King and the civil rights movement, but also for Atlanta. It set off a series of events that some say fundamentally changed the city by bringing blacks and whites together for the first time to share a meal in public. It was a simple act, holding a multiracial banquet in the new Nobel laureate’s honor. Yet, it tested the will and even the nerves of those determined to make Atlanta a more just and equal place. “It was a defining moment in the history of the city, and it should go down in the city’s documented memory,” said Janice R. Blumberg, the widow of Rabbi Jacob Rothschild, who helped organize the banquet. How To Celebrate The Prize Following the announcement of King's Nobel win, the immediate question became how do you honor the black man who was now the city’s most important figure?

In 1964 Atlanta, the races did not mix. There was talk in the black community about perhaps having a dinner at an Atlanta restaurant where the civil rights leaders would meet and discuss strategy. “But it was important that he be received by the entire city,” Young said. Rothschild was the influential rabbi of the temple that had been bombed six years earlier by white supremacists — people who thought that whites were superior to Jews and blacks. The rabbi thought the entire city should participate in celebrating King's Nobel Peace Prize. “He clearly saw that not only was it the right thing to do, but the only thing to do,” his wife said. “He was determined that Atlanta would do the right thing." No Support From Business Community Rothschild, along with the mayor and a group of important Atlanta residents, decided to hold a huge banquet at the Dinkler Plaza Hotel downtown. Two years earlier, the hotel had refused to give a room to the first African-American Nobel Peace Prize winner, Ralph Bunche. Even after King's dinner had been announced and a date set, nobody was buying tickets. Atlanta’s powerful business community had refused go along with the idea of the multiracial dinner.

“Some of them may have still been segregationists,” who wanted blacks and white to be separate, said Blumberg, the rabbi's wife. “But things were changing and some of them couldn’t see it. They were businessmen and trying to judge what was going to happen to their businesses," she said. Some members of the business community simply did not like King or the civil rights community. Young believes that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which was keeping an eye on King, “was poisoning the Atlanta community with calls, threats and lies about him." "We Shall Overcome" On Dec. 16, the banquet organizers sent a letter to Atlanta-based Coca-Cola, asking for the company's help. According to Young’s written account, J. Paul Austin, chairman of Coca-Cola, said: “It is embarrassing for Coca-Cola to be located in a city that refuses to honor its Nobel Prize winner. We are an international business. The Coca-Cola Company does not need Atlanta. You all have to decide whether Atlanta needs the Coca-Cola Company.” Two hours after Coca-Cola's statement, every ticket was sold. On the night of Jan.

27, 1965, about 1,500 people — black and white — packed the Dinkler’s ballroom to greet King. The evening ended with the entire crowd singing the civil-rights song, “We Shall Overcome.” Today, King's Nobel Prize is in the news again. King’s three surviving children are due in court in December to determine if the 23-karat gold Nobel Prize medal and a Bible their father once owned should be sold. Brothers Martin Luther King III and Dexter King want to sell the items while their sister, Bernice King, is opposed to selling the mementos. Sign up for a free account to read the full article. Martin Luther King, Jr.: Biography, Speeches & Quotes Martin Luther King, Jr.: Biography, Speeches & Quotes By Jessie Szalay, LiveScience Contributor | January 17, 2014 01:47am ET MORE Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968) Credit: Library of Congress. Martin Luther King Jr. was a pastor, humanitarian and leader in the American civil rights movement of the 1960s.

In numerous speeches, marches and letters, he fought for racial and economic justice. He was lauded for his nonviolent approach to civil disobedience. Assassinated in 1968 at the age of 39, King made an incredible impact on the country’s racial, cultural and intellectual landscape. Early life King was born on Jan. 15, 1929, to the Rev. Michael King and Alberta Williams King in Atlanta, Ga. His birth name was Michael King Jr. The King family had deep roots in the Atlanta black community and the African-American Baptist Church. Both his grandfather and father served in succession at Ebenezer Baptist Church (down the street from King’s childhood home), and established it as a major congregation in Baptist circles. They were also both leaders in the Atlanta branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Michael King Sr. changed his name and his son's name to Martin Luther in 1934 to honor the 16th-century German religious reformer. King attended segregated schools and graduated from high school at 15.

He received his Bachelor of Arts degree in sociology at Morehouse College in 1948, and went on to gain a Bachelor of Divinity degree from Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania and a doctorate in Philosophy of Systematic Theology from Boston University. While in Boston, he met music student Coretta Scott. The two later married and had two daughters and two sons. King contemplated an academic career but ultimately followed his father and grandfather to the pulpit. In 1954, he accepted the position of pastor at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Ala. Ministry and civil rights leadership In Montgomery, King began to be known as a prominent leader in the civil rights movement. In 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus to a white man and was arrested. Local leaders formed an organization to protest Parks’ arrest and chose King to head the group. In this role, he became the primary spokesperson for what would become the 382-day Montgomery Bus Boycott. During the boycott, King was abused and arrested, and his house was bombed, but he remained a stalwart and committed leader.

King’s activism, leadership and ministry drew heavily on his Christian principles as well as the nonviolent teachings of Mahatma Gandhi. King skillfully drew upon a wide range of theological and philosophical influences to mobilize black churches and communities and to appeal for white support. He turned from an abstract view of God to a more supportive, reassuring concept, describing God as “a living reality that has been validated in the experiences of everyday life." After the Supreme Court outlawed bus segregation, King helped expand the civil rights movement throughout the South. He was elected president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and moved back to Atlanta to be closer to the organization’s headquarters and to become co-pastor with his father at Ebenezer Baptist Church. He also traveled and spoke widely, spreading the message of nonviolent protest; wrote five books; organized voting drives; led peaceful protests and marches; and was arrested more than 20 times. 'Letter from Birmingham City Jail' In 1963, King led a nonviolent protest in highly segregated Birmingham, Ala. The campaign was met with brutality from the police, who attacked demonstrators with dogs and hoses.

King was arrested and, in a cell, drafted his famous “ Letter from Birmingham City Jail ,” which became a manifesto for civil rights and civil disobedience. The letter combined ideas from the Bible, the Constitution and other respected texts. March on Washington and 'I Have a Dream' speech On Aug. 28, 1963, about 250,000 people marched in Washington, D.C., in the largest demonstration of its kind in the city. At the Lincoln Memorial, King delivered the inspirational and oft-quoted “ I Have a Dream ” speech. The speech's most famous phrases include: "I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up, live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal … "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." The speech inspired the nation and solidified King’s status as a national civil rights leader. After the march, King and other leaders met with President John F. Kennedy to discuss equal rights and an end to segregation.

Nobel Peace Prize Following the March on Washington, Time magazine named King its “Man of the Year.” The next year, in 1964 at the age of 35, King became the youngest person ever to win the Nobel Peace Prize . He donated the winnings to the civil rights movement. King received hundreds of other awards and several honorary degrees. Later work and assassination In addition to his work on racial issues, King became an activist for economic justice and a critic of the Vietnam War. He formed an organization called the Poor Peoples Campaign, which was unpopular among some black activists who wanted to take more radical approaches to social change, such as those advocated by the Black Power campaigns. On April 3, 1968, in Memphis, Tenn., King delivered a poignant speech, intoning, “I've been to the mountaintop [and] I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land." The next day, while standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel, King was assassinated.

White segregationist James Earl Ray was convicted of the crime, though the identity of King’s murderer was the subject of some controversy. The Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial stands on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Credit: Lissandra Melo / Shutterstock.com Legacy and memorial King had a profound impact on the United States. The March on Washington was influential in the passing of the landmark Civil Rights Act, which essentially made segregation illegal. The Voting Rights Act was passed as the result of the 1965 Selma to Montgomery March. In 1968, Coretta Scott King founded the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change. She also led the effort to make King’s birthday a national holiday, first celebrated in 1986. On Aug. 28, 2011 — the 48th anniversary of the March on Washington — a memorial to King was dedicated on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. The memorial consists of a 30-foot statue of King carved into the “Stone of Hope” breaking through two boulders representing the “Mountain of Despair.” Memorable quotes "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.

Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." "I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear." "We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope." "In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends." "A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom." "We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools." "The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy." The Nobel Peace Prize 1964 - Presentation Speech Presentation Speech The Nobel Peace Prize 1964 Martin Luther King Jr. Award Ceremony Speech Presentation Speech by Gunnar Jahn * , Chairman of the Nobel Committee on 10 December 1964 Not many years have passed since the name Martin Luther King became known all over the world.

Nine years ago, as leader of the Negro people in Montgomery in the state of Alabama, he launched a campaign to secure for Negroes the right to use public transport on an equal footing with whites. But it was not because he led a racial minority in their struggle for equality that Martin Luther King achieved fame. Many others have done the same, and their names have been forgotten. Luther King's name will endure for the way in which he has waged his struggle, personifying in his conduct the words that were spoken to mankind: Whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also! 1 Fifty thousand Negroes obeyed this commandment in December, 1955, and won a victory. This was the beginning. At that time Martin Luther King was only twenty-six years old; he was a young man, but nevertheless a mature one. His father is a clergyman, who made his way in life unaided and provided his children with a good home where he tried to shield them from the humiliations of racial discrimination.

Both as a member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and as a private citizen, he has been active in the struggle for civil rights, and his children have followed in his footsteps. As a boy Martin Luther King soon learned the role played by economic inequality in the life of the individual and of the community. From his childhood years this left its indelible mark on him, but there is no evidence to suggest that as a boy he had yet made up his mind to devote his life to the struggle for Negro rights. He spent his student years in the northern states, where the laws provided no sanction for the discrimination he had encountered in the South, but where, nevertheless, black and white did not mix in their daily lives. Yet living in the northern states - especially in a university milieu - was like a breath of fresh air. At Boston University, where he took a doctor's degree in philosophy, he met Coretta Scott, who was studying singing. She was from his own state of Alabama, a member of the black middle class which also exists in the South.

The young couple, after being married, were faced with a choice: should they remain in the North where life offered greater security and better conditions, or return to the South? They elected to go back to the South where Martin Luther King was installed as minister of a Baptist congregation in Montgomery. Here he lived in a society where a sharp barrier existed between Negroes and whites. Worse still, the black community in Montgomery was itself divided, its leaders at loggerheads and the rank and file paralyzed by the passivity of its educated members. As a result of their apathy, few of them were engaged in the work of improving the status of the Negro. The great majority were indifferent; those who had something to lose were afraid of forfeiting the little they had achieved. Nor, as Martin Luther King discovered, did all the Negro clergy care about the social problems of their community; many of them were of the opinion that ministers of religion had no business getting involved in secular movements aimed at improving people's social and economic conditions. Their task was "to preach the Gospel and keep men's minds centered on the heavenly! " Early in 1955 an attempt was made to unite the various groups of blacks. The attempt failed.

Martin Luther King said that "the tragic division in the Negro community could be cured only by some divine miracle!" The picture he gives us of conditions in Montgomery is not an inspiring one; even as late as 1954 the Negroes accepted the existing status as a fact, and hardly anyone opposed the system actively. Montgomery was a peaceful town. But beneath the surface discontent smoldered. Some of the black clergy, in their sermons as well as in their personal attitude, championed the cause of Negro equality, and this had given many fresh confidence and courage. Then came the bus boycott of December 5, 1955. It looks almost as if the boycott was the result of a mere coincidence. The immediate cause was the arrest of Mrs. Rosa Parks for refusing to give up her seat on a bus to a white man. She was in the section reserved for Negroes and was occupying one of the seats just behind the section set aside for whites, which was filled. The arrest of Mrs. Parks not only aroused great resentment, but provoked direct action, and it was because of this that Martin Luther King was to become the central personality in the Negro's struggle for human rights.

In his book Stride toward Freedom he has described not only the actual bus conflict, but also how, on December 5 after the boycott had been started, he was elected chairman of the organization formed to conduct the struggle. 2 He tells us that the election came as a surprise to him; had he been given time to think things over he would probably have said no. He had supported the boycott when asked to do so on December 4, but he was beginning to doubt whether it was morally right, according to Christian teaching, to start a boycott. Then he remembered David Thoreau's essay on "Civil Disobedience" which he had read in his earlier years and which had made a profound impression on him. A sentence by Thoreau 3 came back to him:"We can no longer lend our cooperation to an evil system." But he was not convinced that the boycott would be carried out. As late as the evening of Sunday, December 4, he believed that if sixty percent of the Negroes cooperated, it would prove reasonably successful. During the morning of December 5, as bus after bus without a single Negro passenger passed his window, he realized that the boycott had proved a hundred percent effective.

But final victory had not yet been won, and as yet no one had announced that the campaign was to be conducted in accordance with the slogan: "Thou shalt not requite violence with violence." This message was given to his people by Martin Luther King in the speech he made to thousands of them on the evening of December 5, 1955. He calls this speech 4 the most decisive he ever made. Here are his own words: "We have sometimes given our white brothers the feeling that we liked the way we were being treated. But we come here tonight to be saved from that patience that makes us patient with anything less than freedom and Justice. But, [he continues] our method will be that of persuasion not coercion. We will only say to the people, "Let your conscience be your guide." Our actions must be guided by the deepest principles of our Christian faith ...

Once again we must hear the words of Jesus 5 echoing across the centuries: "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, and pray for them that despitefully use you." He concludes as follows: "If you will protest courageously and yet with dignity and Christian love, when the history books are written [in future generations], the historians will [have to pause and] say: "There lived a great people - a black people who injected new meaning and dignity into the veins of civilization." This is our challenge and our overwhelming responsibility." This battle cry - for such it was - was enthusiastically received by the audience. This was Montgomery's moment in history, as Martin Luther King calls it. His words rallied the majority of Negroes during their active struggle for human rights. All around the South, inspired by this slogan, they declared war on the discrimination between black and white in eating places, shops, schools, public parks, and playgrounds. How was it possible to obtain such strong support? To answer this question we must recall the strong position enjoyed by the clergy among the Negroes. The church is their only sanctuary in their leisure hours; here they can rise above the troubles and cares of everyday life.

Nor would the appeal that they go into battle unarmed have been followed, had not the blacks themselves been so profoundly religious. Despite laws passed by Congress and judgments given by the American Supreme Court, this struggle has not proved successful everywhere, since these laws and judgments have been sabotaged, as anyone who has followed the course of events subsequent to 1955 knows. Despite sabotage and imprisonment, the Negroes have continued their unarmed struggle. Only rarely have they acted against the principle given to them by requiting violence with violence, even though for many of us this would have been the immediate reaction. What can we say of the young students who sat down in an eating place reserved for whites? They were not served, but they remained seated. White teenagers mocked and insulted them and stubbed their lighted cigarettes out on their necks. The black students sat unmoving. They possessed the strength that only belief can give, the belief that they fight in a just cause and that their struggle will lead to victory precisely because they wage it with peaceful means. Martin Luther King's belief is rooted first and foremost in the teaching of Christ, but no one can really understand him unless aware that he has been influenced also by the great thinkers of the past and the present.

He has been inspired above all by Mahatma Gandhi 6 , whose example convinced him that it is possible to achieve victory in an unarmed struggle. Before he had read about Gandhi, he had almost concluded that the teaching of Jesus could only be put into practice as between individuals; but after making a study of Gandhi he realized that he had been mistaken. "Gandhi" he says, "was probably the first person in history to lift the love ethic of Jesus above mere interaction between individuals to a powerful and effective social force ..." In Gandhi's teaching he found the answer to a question that had long troubled him: How does one set about carrying out a social reform? "I found" he tells us, "in the nonviolent resistance philosophy of Gandhi ... the only morally and practically sound method open to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom." Martin Luther King has been attacked from many quarters. Greatest was the resistance he encountered from white fanatics. Moderate whites and even the more prosperous members of his own race consider he is proceeding too fast, that he should wait and let time work for him to weaken the opposition. In an open letter in the press eight clergymen reproached him for this and other aspects of his campaign.

Martin Luther King answered these charges in a letter written in Birmingham Jail in the spring of 1963. I should like to quote a few lines: "Actually time itself is neutral ... Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability. It comes through the tireless efforts of men, willing to be co-workers with God, and without this hard work time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation." 7 In answer to the charge that he has failed to negotiate, he replies: "You are quite right in calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to ... foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue." He reminds them that the Negroes have not won a single victory for civil rights without struggling persistently to achieve it in a lawful way without recourse to violence. When reproached for breaking the laws in the course of his struggle, he replies as follows: "There are two types of laws: just and unjust ... An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law ...

An unjust law is a code that a numerical or powerful majority group compels a minority group to obey but does not make binding on itself ... One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty." Martin Luther King also takes the church to task. Even during the bus conflict in Montgomery he had expected that white clergy and rabbis would prove the Negroes' staunchest allies. But he was bitterly disappointed. "All too many others," he recalls, " have been more cautious than courageous and have remained silent behind the anesthetizing security of stained-glass windows." It is not difficult to understand Martin Luther King's disappointment with the white church, for what is the first commandment of Christian teaching if not "Thou shalt love thy neighbor?" Yet even if victory is won in the fight against segregation, discrimination will still persist in the economic field and in social intercourse. Realistic as he is, Martin Luther King knows this.

In his book Strength to Love he writes: "The Court orders and federal enforcement agencies are of inestimable value in achieving desegregation, but desegregation is only a partial, though necessary, step towards the final goal which we seek to realize, genuine intergroup and interpersonal living ... But something must touch the hearts and souls of men so that they will come together spiritually because it is natural and right ..." True integration will be achieved by true neighbors who are willingly obedient to unenforceable obligations. Martin Luther King's unarmed struggle has been waged in his own country; its result has been that an obdurate, centuries-old, and traditional conflict is now nearing its solution. Is it possible that the road he and his people have charted may bring a ray of hope to other parts of the world, a hope that conflicts between races, nations, and political systems can be solved, not by fire and sword, but in a spirit of true brotherly love? Can the words of our poet Arnulf Overland 8 come true? The unarmed only can draw on sources eternal. The spirit alone gives victory.

It sounds like a dream of a remote and unknown future; but life is not worth living without a dream and without working to make the dream reality. Today, now that mankind is in possession of the atom bomb, the time has come to lay our weapons and armaments aside and listen to the message Martin Luther King has given us through the unarmed struggle he has waged on behalf of his race. Luther King looks also beyond the frontiers of his own country. He says: "More than ever before, my friends, men of all races and nations are today challenged to be neighborly ... No longer can we afford the luxury of passing by on the other side. Such folly was once called moral failure; today it will lead to universal suicide ... If we assume that mankind has a right to survive, then we must find an alternative to war and destruction. In our days of space vehicles and guided ballistic missiles, the choice is either nonviolence or nonexistence ..." Though Martin Luther King has not personally committed himself to the international conflict, his own struggle is a clarion call to all who work for peace. He is the first person in the Western world to have shown us that a struggle can be waged without violence.

He is the first to make the message of brotherly love a reality in the course of his struggle, and he has brought this message to all men, to all nations and races. Today we pay tribute to Martin Luther King, the man who has never abandoned his faith in the unarmed struggle he is waging, who has suffered for his faith, who has been imprisoned on many occasions, whose home has been subject to bomb attacks, whose life and the lives of his family have been threatened, and who nevertheless has never faltered. To this undaunted champion of peace the Nobel Committee of the Norwegian Parliament has awarded the Peace Prize for the year 1964. * Mr. Jahn delivered this speech on December 10, 1964, in the auditorium of the University of Oslo. This text in English translation, with some minor emendations, is taken from Les Prix Nobel en 1964. Dr. King, who was present, received his award from Mr.

Jahn, accepting in the name of a civil rights movement determined to establish a reign of freedom and a rule of justice and terming the award a recognition of non-violence as the answer to the crucial political and moral question of our time, the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to violence and oppression. 1. Matthew 5:39 2. Martin Luther King, Jr., Stride toward Freedom, chap. 4 and passim. 3. SeeThe Works of Thoreau, ed. by H.S. Canby (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1946). King's sentence is a paraphrase of Thoreau's main point in the essay "Civil Disobedience". 4. This speech, delivered at the Holt Street Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, is described and excerpted by King inStride toward Freedom, pp. 61-64. 5. Matthew 5:44. "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you." 6.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948), Hindu religious leader and Indian nationalist who advocated home rule for India and practiced nonviolent resistance against the British government. 7. Martin Luther King, Jr., "Why We Can't Wait," p. 89. 8. Arnulf Overland From Nobel Lectures , Peace 1951-1970, Editor Frederick W. Haberman, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1972 MLK Wins the Nobel Prize | Today In Georgia History Winner of two 2013 Emmy Awards from the Southeast Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Today in Georgia History is a joint collaboration of the Georgia Historical Society & Georgia Public Broadcasting. October 14 MLK Wins the Nobel Prize October 14, 1964 - Atlanta He was the youngest person ever to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Martin Luther King, Jr., was born in Atlanta in 1929 as Michael Luther King. His father later changed their names. He grew up on Auburn Avenue near Ebenezer Baptist Church, where his grandfather and father were pastors.

King graduated from Morehouse College, became an ordained minister, and earned a Ph.D. at Boston University, where he met his wife Coretta. As pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, King led the bus boycott there in 1955. His philosophy of non-violent direct action made him the most prominent African-American in the civil rights movement. He launched the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1957, and moved back to Atlanta to co-pastor Ebenezer with his father. In Birmingham, the March on Washington, and Selma, King became a national symbol of the campaign to end segregation in America. It eventually cost him his life. In spite of numerous arrests, physical violence, and bombings of his home, King remained committed to non-violence. At 35, he became the youngest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize on October 14, 1964, Today in Georgia History.

Martin Luther King Born: January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia Died: April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee Vocations: Social Activist, Essayist, Minister, Speech Writer Geographic Connection to Pennsylvania: Chester, Delaware County Keywords: Boston University; Civil Rights Movement; Crozer Theological Seminary; "I Have a Dream" speech; "Letter from Birmingham Jail;" Morehouse College; Nobel Peace Prize; Presidential Medal of Freedom; Southern Christian Leadership Conference Abstract: Born in Atlanta on January 15, 1929, Martin Luther King Jr. was a minister and civil rights leader who strongly believed in nonviolence. He attended Crozer Theological Seminary School in Chester, Pennsylvania to further his studies as a minister. In 1963 he was named Time magazine's Man of the Year; the next year he became the youngest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. King is most remembered for his powerfully moving speeches, including "I Have a Dream," given before a crowd of 200,000 at the March on Washington in 1963.

He was assassinated on April 4, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee by James Earl Ray. Biography: Martin Luther King Jr. was born on January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia. He was the second child and the first son for his father, Rev. Martin Luther King, and his mother, Alberta Williams. He was accepted to Morehouse College in Atlanta at the age of 15. In 1948, at the age of 19, he had earned a Bachelor of Arts in sociology. That same year he was ordained as a Baptist minister, following in the footsteps of the men in his family. In September of 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania, where he became the first African American to be elected student body president. While there, he attended a lecture about Mahatma Gandhi that had a profound impact on his thoughts. King began reading about Gandhi and his nonviolent approach to solving problems of social injustice. He graduated from Crozer with the highest grade point average in his class. King then enrolled in Boston University where he met his wife, Coretta Scott.

They were married by King's father in Alabama on June 18, 1953. The couple would later have four children, two girls and two boys. On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks was arrested in Montgomery for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white man. King was chosen to lead the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA), which planned to boycott the transit company. Under King's encouragement, over fifty thousand African Americans boycotted the buses for over a year. The MIA tried to negotiate rules for desegregation with the bus company. In 1956, after many other court cases, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional for Alabama state laws to segregate people on buses and other public accommodations. Early in 1957, King helped organize the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in New Orleans, which was dedicated to winning equal rights for African Americans. He served as their president until his death. King began lecturing all over the country, gaining support for civil rights. He was becoming very well-known to the public. Martin Luther King Jr. was a powerful speaker, motivating African Americans as well as liberal whites to challenge segregation laws and push for equality.

His most famous speech is unquestionably "I Have a Dream," given on August 28, 1963. In this speech King declared his dream "that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." King wrote many books, the first of which was Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story, published in 1958. This book outlined six principles of nonviolence, including the refusal to hate one's opponent and the willingness to accept suffering without retaliation. Next came Strength to Love in 1963, a collection of his sermons. In 1964 he wrote Why We Can't Wait, a collection of essays and letters centered on his now famous 1963 essay "Letter from Birmingham Jail." In 1967 King wrote Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?, which encouraged African Americans to let their voices be heard. That same year he wrote Trumpet of Conscience, a call for a nonviolent revolution. King believed in using peaceful tactics such as sit-ins and boycotts.

His incredible patience and pacifism was sparked by his studies of Gandhi, who he first became interested in while attending school in Chester. Gandhi was so important to King that in 1959 he visited India with Coretta to study Gandhian techniques of nonviolence. He was named Time magazine's Man of the Year in 1963. The following year, at age 35, he became the youngest person to ever receive the Nobel Peace Prize. King was arrested many times; including once for speeding. He was also accused of falsifying his 1956 and 1958 Alabama state income tax returns; he was later acquitted of these charges. But the majority of his arrests were during protests or sit-ins. King felt that going to jail was a small price to pay for speaking and acting against the discrimination and segregation that plagued the African American community. King was subjected to much violence as he became more involved and more well-known for his civil rights activism. His home was bombed in 1956, he was stabbed in Harlem in 1958, and he was frequently attacked by people who were against his beliefs.

On April 4, 1968, King was assassinated by James Earl Ray while standing on the balcony of a hotel in Memphis, Tennessee. He had given his final speech the day before entitled "I've Been to the Mountaintop," in which he declared that although he may not be around to see it, one day there would be equal rights and opportunities for African Americans. President Jimmy Carter awarded Dr. King the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977 for his work in the civil rights movement. The citation for the award read: Martin Luther King Jr. was the conscience of his generation....His life informed us, his dreams sustain us yet." The third Monday of January was declared a national holiday in Dr. King's honor in 1986. Works: Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story. New York: Harper & Row, 1958. Strength to Love. New York: Harper & Row, 1963. Why We Can't Wait. New York: Harper & Row, 1964. Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?. New York: Harper & Row, 1967. Trumpet of Conscience.

New York: Harper & Row, 1967. Essays and Speeches "A Realistic Look at the Questions of Progress in the Area of Race Relations" "Beyond Vietnam" "The Birth of a New Nation" "Eulogy for the Martyred Children" "Give Us the Ballot" "I've Been to the Mountain Top" "Letter from Birmingham Jail" "MIA Mass Meeting at Holt Street Baptist Church" "Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech" "Our God is Marching on" "Paul's Letter to American Christians" "Rediscovering Lost Values" "Speech at the Great March on Detroit" Sources: "Drs. King and Salk Chosen to Receive Medal of Freedom." New York Times (5 Jul. 1977): 14. Dyson, Michael Eric. I May Not Get There With You. New York: The Free Press, 2000. Frady, Marshall. Martin Luther King, Jr. New York: Lipper/Viking, 2002. King, Coretta Scott. My Life With Martin Luther King, Jr. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1969. King, Martin Luther Jr.

Gale Group. 2000. Biography.com. 9 September 2004. < Mikell, Robert S. "King, Martin Luther Jr." The African American Encyclopedia. Ed. Michael W. Williams. Vol. 4. New York: Marshall Cavendish, 1993. For More Information: Branch, Taylor. Parting the Waters. New York: Simon & Shuster, 1989. ---. Pillar of Fire. New York: Simon & Shuster, 1999. Garrow, David. Bearing the Cross. New York: Perennial, 1999. The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. Ed. Cyalborne Carson. New York: Warner Books, 1998. Williams, Juan. Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years, 1954-1965. New York: Penguin Books, 1988. This biographical sketch was prepared by Dana Giusti.

Question: Who became the youngest man, at age 35, to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964?
Answer: Martin Luther King